Sunday, May 21, 2006

T.H., over at The Barber Shop did a great post about a week ago called 'About Fatherhood'. I found it personally to be very inspiring and encouraging to hear a man talk about the joys of fatherhood. With the prevalence of DNA testing being done on talk shows to determine if some (very reluctant) man is the father of someone else's child, and men banding together to see if they can establish parental rights as strong as a woman's (i.e., not have to legally support their children if they were not in favor of him or her being born), it's refreshing to see a brother who feels that fatherhood is both a blessing and a privilege. Here is an excerpt from T.H.'s article.

I'm a proud father of two baby boys, an almost three-year-old and a one-year-old. Prior to becoming a dad I was kind of indifferent about having kids, because my dad was very distant when I was a kid so I guess I looked at children as being a burden to some extent.

In our popular culture a lot of brothers equate freedom and the "good life" to having little or no responsibilities. We're taught to fear being tied down by anything, be it marriage, children, or too much hard work. Words like commitment, discipline, and responsibility have a subtle negative burdensome connotation to them, so even when we embrace some of these situations it's often with a hint of mourning for our lost freedoms.